When it named Robert Bagby as CEO in March 2001, A.G. Edwards all but staked a For Sale sign in front of its St. Louis headquarters. Or so everyone thought. Bagby, despite being an A.G. Edwards lifer (he has been with the firm since 1975), was...
When New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer announced his investigations into improper mutual funds trading practices, the reaction in the press and on the Street was swift and overwhelmingly breathless. In a headline, Money magazine announced...
The average production in the room was $1.5 million, the length of service 20 years, but the trepidation was the sort of thing you might feel at a freshman orientation. This was at a workshop called Skating to the Money Mastering High-Net-Worth...
The formation of private wealth groups is continuing as a trend in the brokerage world, and the most recent additions are UBS Securities and Wachovia. Both companies have announced strategies that take aim at a highly specialized, high-income...
Do your clients think you're boring? Try the joke book whose title is a joke in itself: 400 Greatest Jokes for Investment Advisors, Financial Planners, Financial Speakers, Insurance Agents, CPAs, Bankers & Stockbrokers. A sample entry: An actuary...
Merrill Lynch's long-awaited revamping of its desktop workstations will finally hit advisor desks at the end of this year. Meanwhile, the firm is actively recruiting again, though the number of jobs added in the hiring push is unlikely to equal...
If you aspire to serving affluent clients, providing financial plans that help them budget and prepare for quarterly estimated taxes is a must. Unlike ordinary taxes, which are withdrawn automatically from wages and pensions, estimated taxes rely...
The financial services industry is burdened by paperwork. But stock-jockey brokers should be thanking the Feds in at least one instance: for insider trading data. Insiders company officers, directors, relatives, anyone with access to key company...
For many advisors, the Series 65 is a ticking time bomb. Or, so says Donald B. Trone, founder of the Foundation for Fiduciary Studies in Pittsburgh. Trone, a long-time investment consultant, contends that no one is paying attention to a tricky...
Your Magic 8 ball has a better chance of predicting the outcome of the current estate tax enigma then you do. Couple that with the uncertainty of the stock market, and you have the making of some panicky clients. While you can't predict the future...
